Experts back NYC's link of gun laws, lower crime

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is an outspoken advocate for gun control. He touts historic crime lows in New York City as an outcome of strict gun laws that are strictly enforced.

And criminologists say for the most part he's right. As proof, they cite the all-time low number of murders in a city where most people are killed with guns.

Before New York state lawmakers passed the nation's toughest gun control laws last week, it had some of the strictest on the books, and city regulations augment them. But experts say the laws didn't start working until police started effectively enforcing them.

Crime has dropped almost across the board in the decade Bloomberg has been in office. There were 418 slayings last year in a city of 8 million people, the lowest since reliable records were kept starting in 1963.